NSA & GCHQ - hand in glove. Are you really surprised?

The level of surveillance across the US and the UK should not come as a shock to their citizens. To what extent is the nature of these actions rooted in history? Would even the most benevolent of governments be able to stop the constant monitoring of its citizens?

The special relationship
between the US and the UK has since the Second World War been the same as
that of a vassal state or town to the Roman Empire. Roman emperors knew certain
regions subject to the Pax Romana had
skills and products they needed but simply could not supply at the heart of the
Empire. They therefore entered into arrangements whereby they supported
chieftains and tribal elders who would ensure the free flow of the required
commodity, be it glass, oil or slaves with particular skills. They were, of
course, the dominant power in these relationships, but the Roman Peace
consisted of a combination of military might, cultural and financial patronage
and really, really straight roads. The Pax Americana consists of blue jeans,
hamburgers, movies, HBO and SIGINT.

The UK is rather like the
ancient Roman town of Baelo Claudia in Southern Spain, which produced the
finest garum
(fermented fish sauce) in the known world. It layered rotting fish in deep
wells and allowed them to ferment and liquefy in the sun before exporting the
pungent condiment to all corners of the Empire. In return, the town
received the status of Municipium from the Emperor Claudius; a form of
self-governance within the Empire. In other words, it made the little villagers
feel as if they were independent and sovereign whilst clearly being financed,
protected and propped up by the City of Rome.

The UK has been for a long
time the principal exponent of surveillance and SIGINT technology and
methodology. Their special brand of sauce has been a tasty ‘must have’ for the
US since Bletchley Park
first provided the basis for modern encryption, decryption and computing.
Similar to downtown Baelo Claudia, it stinks to high heaven, but no one is
really surprised.

Knowing something is
inevitably true, believing it to be so and then discovering a material fact
that confirms your belief is received by the brain and processed into a stage
reaction worthy of the double-take in a creaky murder mystery performed by a
member of an amateur dramatic society in a shabby church hall: we are unconvinced by our own incredulity. We know this
stuff goes on and we gasp with wide-eyed indignation, protest, campaign and
then move on, tacitly accepting it because we don’t believe it can be stopped.

Let us suppose a future new
generation of politicians, energised by the protests of the early twenty-first
century grows up to wage a radical political campaign against the surveillance
state. In a new era of political thought resembling the Kennedy
administration’s engagement with civil rights in the US and the Attlee
government’s radical construction of the welfare state in the UK, they
successfully legislate against the worst excesses of data capture and analysis
of all citizens in the Empire and its vassal states. They throw open the doors
of their intelligence agencies and emphasise the danger of burning liberty in
the quest for security. What then? Will the technology go away? Will every
country in the world regard itself as subject to the same respect for individual
privacy at the price of increased security? Of course not: the spooks will
consider it their duty, as now, to ignore the concerns of libertarian
politicians paying lip service to liberty and will continue to ensure that they
have absolute access to you and everything you do, say or think.

Orwell said “The same
pattern always reasserts itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to
equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other.” Whilst this is
true, there have been marked changes in our lives as a result of discounting
this counsel of despair and fighting back. But who will be the Rosa Parks of
the Data Wars? Snowden?

The one fatal flaw in the
encroachment on civil liberties is that it relies on young minds in back rooms
devising ever more intelligent means of surveillance and data analysis. The
hackers find themselves recruited as security analysts rather than kicking
their heels at home with an electronic tag on their leg and a banning order
preventing them from even touching a keyboard; the technology becoming both the
werewolf and the silver bullet.

There is an arms race going
on and in the Data Wars, the corporations and intelligence agencies are the
dominant armies on the plain. But there are undoubtedly rearguard actions and
resistance maquisards,
some not yet born, who may find a way for a citizen to be, as far as possible,
guarded against unwarranted state and commercial intrusion. Many already exist,
albeit with holes. But it is possible that the drills of the data miners will
be blunted by a clever bit of code combined with legislation and controls that
will limit the price exacted for the Pax Americana. It will not be foolproof,
but political equilibrium in the course of its progress from one end of liberty
to another may, for a while at least, tilt in the direction of the truly
private citizen.

Dom
Shaw is a writer and filmmaker. He won the 1982 Grierson Award for Best
Documentary for co-directing the seminal post-punk documentary “Rough Cut &
Ready Dubbed” and has written for the BBC and ITV. His first novel, “Eric is
Awake” is on sale now. Follow him on @papadom2

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